The Red Book of Westmarch is a fine and noble tome, written by the noble Bilbo and Frodo Baggins and annotated by their heirs. It details the great events of the War of the Ring, the end of the Third Age and the passing of the Shadow.

The Red Book was given to Sam's daughter, Elanor and the original is still kept by her family, the Fairbairns of Westmarch. However, many copies have been made; indeed my family has a fine copy that was brought to the Great Smials in 172 from Gondor, where it was inscribed by Findegil, the King’s Writer. It is an exact copy in all details of the Thain’s Book in Minas Tirith, which in turn was a copy of the Red Book of the Periannath (the southern term for Hobbits), and was brought to King Elessar by the Thain Peregrin when he retired to Gondor.

All worthy Hobbits that have learnt their letters study the Red Book, and it is read to us by our gaffers on bright Sunday afternoons, lest we forget that our quiet and contented lives in The Shire are thanks to the valiant efforts of the wise and our own forefathers, who strove against the darkness.

And yet, also, we should not forget those fateful words of Gandalf, that though The Dark Lord of Mordor was destroyed and thrown down, evil may rise again to threaten our land.

Yet for now we live under the blessed hand of the King Earnil, whose Rangers still guard the woods on our borders, preserving the peace of the Shire.

I would be glad to show you a few pages, but I will need to get permission from the Thain.

"'Other evils there are that may come; for Sauron is himself but a servant or emissary. Yet it is not our part to master all the tides of the world, but to do what is in us for the succour of those years wherein we are set, uprooting the evil in the fields that we know, so that those who live after may have clean earth to till. What weather they shall have is not ours to rule.'"

- Gandalf, from the Red Book
The Return of the King